Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

gamespress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 25 posts

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#11

Post by tredre3 »

degurechaff wrote: post #2

the requirement is too vague. whats the OS? are common dll (assuming windows) like msvcrt included in the 1.44 MB size or not? .Net runtime also usually installed, will it count too?

To me the spirit seems to be that it should run on your average Windows machine without any external dependencies and without a web browser.

Your average PC has half a dozen .net runtimes installed but likely not the correct .net version you want (yay), so to me it seems like it would be out. Same for the various C++ redistributables, better not rely on that unless you ship the DLLs you need with it (which I don't think you're allowed to do per Microsoft).

https://2pgarcade.com/contest-144mb.html isn't much more elaborate than the article unfortunately.

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#12

Post by tredre3 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Until relatively recently in computing history, games (and all other programs) were small. Hell, Pokemon Gold fits un a floppy trivially compressed, together with a working GBC emulator. I can trivially fit rePalm unto a floppy and leave enough space for a great PalmOS RTS - "Warfare Inc"

I disagree with your blanket statement. The vast majority of (commercial) PC games were never that small, even in the 3.5" heydays. Most games required 2-10 disks.

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#13

Post by nylonstrung »

addaon wrote: post #3

My recollection is that Civilization (1) came on 5 (? 7?) floppy disks for Mac, but only the first disk was needed for the full game in black and white; the additional disks were needed for color and some add-on assets like improving your palace. "Build a game that stands the test of time as well as Civilization" is a pretty high bar. 1.44 MB is huge.

Ironically what doesn't stand the test of time are Civ 2: Test of Time and the Civ 7 Test of Time update

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#14

Post by nylonstrung »

asimovfan wrote: post #5

A well written, well thought out text based game would crush this competition

I imagine whatever wins will probably resemble demoscene stuff or .kkrieger in that it's impressively optimized and modern looking despite the size

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#15

Post by addaon »

nylonstrung wrote: post #13
addaon wrote: post #3

My recollection is that Civilization (1) came on 5 (? 7?) floppy disks for Mac, but only the first disk was needed for the full game in black and white; the additional disks were needed for color and some add-on assets like improving your palace. "Build a game that stands the test of time as well as Civilization" is a pretty high bar. 1.44 MB is huge.

Ironically what doesn't stand the test of time are Civ 2: Test of Time and the Civ 7 Test of Time update

Civ 7 still isn't good, but Test of Time made it somewhat better. It took a long time for Civ 6 to get good after release, but I'd argue they got there. Still frustrating, though.

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#17

Post by dmitrygr »

tredre3 wrote: post #12
dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Until relatively recently in computing history, games (and all other programs) were small. Hell, Pokemon Gold fits un a floppy trivially compressed, together with a working GBC emulator. I can trivially fit rePalm unto a floppy and leave enough space for a great PalmOS RTS - "Warfare Inc"

I disagree with your blanket statement. The vast majority of (commercial) PC games were never that small, even in the 3.5" heydays. Most games required 2-10 disks.

PC? what pc?

Every single NES game or CGB game would fit on a floppy. More or less all GBC and SNES games could compress down to a floppy

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#18

Post by [deleted] »

tredre3 wrote: post #12
dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Until relatively recently in computing history, games (and all other programs) were small. Hell, Pokemon Gold fits un a floppy trivially compressed, together with a working GBC emulator. I can trivially fit rePalm unto a floppy and leave enough space for a great PalmOS RTS - "Warfare Inc"

I disagree with your blanket statement. The vast majority of (commercial) PC games were never that small, even in the 3.5" heydays. Most games required 2-10 disks.

[deleted]

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#19

Post by pjmlp »

tredre3 wrote: post #12
dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Until relatively recently in computing history, games (and all other programs) were small. Hell, Pokemon Gold fits un a floppy trivially compressed, together with a working GBC emulator. I can trivially fit rePalm unto a floppy and leave enough space for a great PalmOS RTS - "Warfare Inc"

I disagree with your blanket statement. The vast majority of (commercial) PC games were never that small, even in the 3.5" heydays. Most games required 2-10 disks.

When PC really took off as gamming platform against Amiga and Atari ST, shipping games in CD-ROM was already a thing.

Amiga had plenty of single disk games.

Re: Build a Game That Fits on a Single Floppy Disk: 1.44MB Game Development Contest

#20

Post by pjmlp »

dmitrygr wrote: post #17
tredre3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your blanket statement. The vast majority of (commercial) PC games were never that small, even in the 3.5" heydays. Most games required 2-10 disks.

PC? what pc? Every single NES game or CGB game would fit on a floppy. More or less all GBC and SNES games could compress down to a floppy

At least in many European countries, game consoles were never that big during the 1980-90's, until PlayStation really took off.

However, and to go with your remark,

ZX Spectrum, C64, CPC, Archimedes, Amiga, Atari, plenty of games that would fit into a single floppy.

Post reply on HN